Buck Showalter fumes over Mets brass' 'load management' asks
Greg Joyce
~3 minutes

Load management isn’t just an NBA problem, according to Buck Showalter.

The former Mets manager was not a fan of it being suggested — at least
in one specific example — during his time in Queens, either, as he
indicated players “get penalized now for playing too much.”

“I love when those guys come in about their load management,” Showalter
said Tuesday, seemingly referring to front office members, during an
appearance on “Foul Territory.”
Former Mets manager Buck Showalter
Former Mets manager Buck Showalter Charles Wenzelberg/NY Post

“We had a guy that hit a triple and two doubles and they came in and
said he probably needs a day off ’cause he ran too much around the
bases. So what do you want me to tell him, ‘Don’t get any hits, so you
can play the next day?’ I didn’t quite understand that one. I said, ‘OK,
you go out there and tell Brandon Nimmo that he’s not playing today
because he did too well last night.’ ”

There was a game last September in which Nimmo hit a pair of doubles and
a triple, though he did play the next day.

Showalter, who was let go at the end of last season as the Mets brought
in new president of baseball operations David Stearns, went on to say
that he was “perceptive” to the data presented to him by analytics staffers.
Buck Showalter on "Foul Territory" on Tuesday.
Buck Showalter on “Foul Territory” on Tuesday. Foul Territory

But the veteran baseball mind also advocated for a proper balance
between the information and the “heartbeat of a game.”

“They present a lot of things to you but sometimes it’s a lot different
in the dugout in the eighth and ninth inning when you know what’s going
on mentally with a guy, emotionally with a guy,” Showalter said. “You
know things that are going on on and off the field. There’s so many
factors that figure into it. So the best guys that I’ve dealt with are
receptive to the other part of it — they bring something I can’t bring,
but the coaching staff brings something that they can’t bring just from
your experiences.
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“The best organizations — like Texas, you saw a great example. Their
general manager went to an Ivy League school but he played the game. And
their manager, there’s a great relationship there. The guys that mesh
and have respect for what each one brings and don’t make any of those
people feel uncomfortable in the locker room.”